A630.5.4.RB - NASA Culture Change

The main objective of Sean O’Keefe in his address to his employees is to build and communicate a foundation for the NASA culture going forward. He started off his address by stating that the culture and practices at NASA are good, as expressed by its employees and compared to outside organizations, but not nearly as good as they could be. In my opinion, this should be typical of any organization when introducing any major change that will affect the employees and the culture. This isn’t something that can be communicated through an e-mail, or even a meeting, but by the top leadership, the ones who are making the change. I believe he also did it in light of the Columbia incident. Realizing that there may have been a disconnect in the focus areas for the organization, it was wise of Sean to address the employees directly to show his dedication toward bettering the culture and lines of communication in his team.

I think that Sean’s address was genuine and that he truly believed in the principles he was conveying onto his organization. It’s extremely important to come off as genuine and believable, because if not, it would be very hard to get the organization bought into the culture that was he was trying to build. Some employees could say that he was only doing it because of the Columbia incident if he did not appear to be genuine. Organizations see this quite frequently, where an executive says or does something as a formality, not because they truly want to.

The reason Sean talked about NASA values is because these values are going to be the foundation for the culture of NASA. This means every best practice, every safety rule, every compliance issue will be carried out to fulfill the values of the organization. The values entail not only what the organization does, but how it does it and why.

My biggest take away from this video is that genuineness and communication not only go hand-in-hand, but they are the backbone of corporate and organizational culture. The values, goals, mission, and priorities of an organization need to be communicated and reinforced through actions by the leadership team. Employees need to know what the focus areas are for that day, or week, or month and they have to be consistent with the values of that organization. Effective communication can often be overlooked by organizations, so it’s crucial to have programs in place to address employee concerns and keep them informed of any changes.